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Dec 28, 2017 - of Makkah Al Mukarramah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ..... important source of all forms of condensation and precipitation, where there is little moisture in the air; ... February and constitutes as the pleasant months of the year.

Abstract Aims Relative growth rate (RGR) is an indicator of the extent to which a species is using its photosynthates for growth and it is affected by environmental factors, including temperature. Nevertheless, most of plant growth studies have been carried out at a single growth temperature or at different temperature treatments, resulting in the lack of information on the relationship between RGR and changing mean daily air temperature. We analyzed the temporal changes in RGR during early growth stages in three Cistus species grown outdoor in a common garden from seeds of different provenances. Moreover, we wanted to define the relationship between daily changes in RGR and mean daily air temperature for the considered provenances. The hypothesis that intra-specific temporal variations in RGR can reflect differences in the behavior to maximize RGR (RGRmax) in response to temperature was tested. Methods Seedlings of C. salvifolius, C. monspeliensis and C. creticus subsp. eriocephalus were grown outdoor in the experimental garden of the Sapienza University of Rome under a Mediterranean climate. We analyzed early growth with non-linear growth models and calculated function-derived RGRs as the derivative with respect to time of the parameterized functions used to predict height divided by current height. The relationships between function-derived RGRs and mean daily air temperature were analyzed by linear and non-linear

models, which were ranked according to their standard errors and correlation coefficients. The temperature dependency of RGRmax per each provenance was evaluated through the relationship between RGRmax and the coefficients of the best regression model obtained. Important Findings A parameter that could summarize the temperature dependency of RGR up to RGRmax during the early growth stages for the selected provenances was defined. This allowed us to highlight that a greater RGR temperature responsiveness was related to a delay in the time to reach RGRmax independently by the species. Nevertheless, a greater temperature sensitivity of RGR lead to a reduced maximum height which reflects a negative trade-off between the length of the developmental phases and the extent of RGR temperature responsiveness. Thus, variations in temperature responsiveness of RGR up to RGRmax have a significant role in shaping the early growth for the investigated species. Our findings quantitatively define provenance dependent strategies by which the selected species cope with daily air temperature variations during early growth. Keywords: early growth stage, non-linear growth models, functionderived relative growth rate, local adaptation Received: 25 November 2015, Revised: 24 February 2016, Accepted: 25 March 2016

INTRODUCTION Growth is an important process in understanding plant response to environmental conditions since it integrates across scales from plant to community dynamics and ecosystem

and the optimum temperature for growth may potentially differ among and within species (Villar et al. 2005). A useful indicator of the extent to which a species is using its photosynthates for growth is the relative growth rate (RGR) (Gratani et al. 2008), which is known to be affected by environmental factors, including temperature (Lambers et al. 1998). In particular, maximum RGR (RGRmax) is a key trait explaining the distribution of species along environmental gradients, which qualifies it as an important functional trait (Vile et al. 2006). During the last decades, there has been an increasing interest to determine RGRmax of plant species but most of these studies have been carried out under controlled conditions (laboratory or greenhouse) (Villar et al. 2005). This has the advantage of estimating RGRmax and to identify the causes of its variation under standard conditions (Villar et al. 2005). Nevertheless, most of these studies have been carried out at a single growth temperature (typically 20–25°C) or at different temperature treatments (e.g. Loveyes et al. 2002), resulting in the lack of information on the dynamic relationship between RGR and changing mean daily air temperature. The knowledge of both long- and short-term temperature responsiveness of RGR may be useful considering the forecasted increases of daily, seasonal and annual mean temperatures due to global climate change (Atkin et al. 2006; Loveys et al. 2002). This is of particular importance for those species distributed in the Mediterranean basin which is one of the most prominent ‘Hot-Spots’ in future climate change projections (Giorgi 2006). The genus Cistus comprises 21 summer drought semideciduous shrub species with a predominantly Mediterranean distribution (Guzmán et al. 2009). They are characterized by drought-avoiding phenology, displaying two different leaf cohorts during a year (i.e. summer and winter leaves) (Aronne and De Micco 2001). Their phenological behavior is considered to be the main adaptive feature to the Mediterranean type of climate (Gratani and Crescente 1997). Moreover, Cistus

spp. are pioneer species that show enhanced germination and seedling recruitment after fires (de Dato et al. 2013). Thus, Cistus species are important components of the Mediterranean ecosystems acting as a source of nutrients to the soil and facilitating vegetation succession after disturbance (de Dato et al. 2013; Simões et al. 2009). A great effort has been made in investigating the germination capability of Cistus spp. (e.g. Delgado et al. 2008; Olmez et al. 2007a,b; Pela et al. 2000; Roy and Sonie 1992; Tavşanoğlu and Çatav 2012) and their phenological and physiological adaptations to the Mediterranean climate (e.g. Aronne and De Micco 2001; Catoni et al. 2012; de Dato et al. 2013). Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the relationship between RGR and temperature in Cistus spp. during early growth stages has never been investigated. Moreover, since under the Mediterranean climate species ability to grow in short periods, when water availability and temperature are favorable, is a key factor in determining the ability to establish itself (El Aou-Ouad et al. 2015), the aims of the present study were: (i) to analyze the temporal (i.e. daily) RGR changes during early growth stages of three Cistus species (i.e. C. salvifolius, C. monspeliensis and C. creticus subsp. eriocephalus) from different provenances and (ii) to define the relationship between RGR and mean daily air temperature for each of the considered provenance. In particular, our hypothesis was that intra-specific temporal variations in RGR reflected differences in the behavior to maximize RGR in response to temperature.

Plant material, study site and climate Information on the distribution and habitat requirements for the selected species are shown in Table 1. Seeds of C. monspeliensis, C. salvifolius and C. creticus subsp. eriocephalus (hereafter referred as CM, CS and CE, respectively) from different provenances (n = 100 seeds per species and provenance) were obtained from the Sardinian Germplasm Bank (BG-SAR). Seeds storage in BG-SAR follows the

Table 1: habitat requirements, altitudinal range (m a.s.l.) and distribution for the three Cistus species studied Species

Habitat

Altitude

Distribution

References

C. creticus subsp. eriocephalus Greuter & Burdet (ex C. incanus L.)

Coastal belt, arid and warm areas of maquis and garrigue.

0–800

Central-Eastern Mediterranean (it is absent in the Iberian Peninsula), Northern Africa and Western Asia

Abbate Edlmann et al. (1994); Pignatti (1982)

C. salvifolius L.

Silicolous and calcicolous soils. Sandy soils of a wide range of habitats; it is often located within the understory.

0–1800

Circum-Mediterranean distribution. South Europe, extending northward to 47° in West France; it is present from Portugal and Morocco to Palestine and the Eastern coast of the Black sea.

protocols reported in Bacchetta et al. (2008). In particular, CM seeds were collected in S-W Spain (referred as CMSp, Loc. Pantano Quebrajano, 37°37′57.7″N; 03°43′43.9″W, Andalucía) and in Sardinia (referred as CMS, Loc. Guspini, 39°32′32″N; 8°38′02″E, Medio Campidano). CS seeds were collected in S-W Spain (referred as CSSp, Loc. Huelva, 37°15′N; 6°57′W, Andalucia) and in Sardinia (referred as CSS, Loc. Portixeddu, 39°26′32″N; 8°24′37″E, Carbonia-Iglesias). CE seeds were collected in Sardinia (referred as CES, Loc. Portixeddu, 39°26′32″N; 8°24′37″E, Carbonia-Iglesias) and on the Italian mainland (referred as CEF, Loc. Foce del Garigliano, 41°13′23″N; 13°45′45″E, Caserta). The selected provenances fall in a W-E gradient, thus, hereafter CSSp, CMSp and CES are also referred as eastward provenances while CSS, CMS and CES as westward provenances. In February 2015, 50 seeds per species and provenance were treated according to Pela et al. (2000) as follows: distilled water was boiled to ~100°C and the heat source removed. Then the seeds were soaked in the hot water for 35 s. Seeds were then placed on wet filter paper discs in Petri dishes and incubated in a germination chamber (type CC7, Amcota, Italy). For the ‘light’ treatment, the following regime was applied: 12:12 h light–dark cycle at 15/6°C. The selected protocol ensures the maximum germination percentage for Cistus spp. (Pela et al. 2000). The percentage of germination ranged between 32% and 44% for pooled provenances. Thus, 15 replicates per each provenance were established. In March 2015, seedlings were transplanted to 10 l pots containing an organic commercial substrate (COMPO BIO, COMPO GmbH, Germany) with the following composition: organic carbon (C) 35%, humic carbon 11%, organic nitrogen (N) 1.4%, carbon on total nitrogen ratio of 25, peat (65%) and pH(H2O) 6.0–7.0. Seedlings were arranged in a completely randomized design (i.e. replications are assigned completely at random to independent experimental subjects) and grown outdoor in the experimental garden of the Sapienza University of Rome (41°54′N, 12°31′E; 41 m a.s.l.). Rome has a Mediterranean type of climate (Fig. 1). The mean minimum air temperature of the coldest month (January)

was 4.9°C, the mean maximum air temperature of the hottest month (August) was 31.0°C (data from the Meteorological Station of Roma Macao, Ufficio Idrografico e Mareografico, Lazio Regional Agency, for the period 2006–14). During the study period (May–August 2015), the mean air temperature (Ta) was 21.7 ± 6°C, and total rainfall was 98.6 mm.

Growth analysis Plants were monitored every 8 days in the period May– August 2015 (i.e. 88 days). In each sampling day, measurements were carried out on 15 randomly selected plants per provenance. Seedling mortality was also recorded. The following parameters were monitored: plant height (H, cm), defined as the major distance from the soil level to the highest point of the plant; leaf length (Ll, cm) and width (Lw, cm), determined in each sampling occasion on 60 fully expanded young leaves per provenance; total number of leaves produced (n) and total number of internodes produced (n). The ratio between Lw and Ll (Lw/Ll) was used as a leaf shape index (Guzmán et al. 2009). Leaf production rate (LPR) was calculated according to Cochrane et al. (2015) as the natural log of the difference between the number of leaves at first sampling (May 2015) and the number of leaves at the end of the growth period (August 2015), divided by the number of days between the two time periods. Measurements were carried out until no significant differences in H between provenances were observed. Leaf mass area (LMA, mg·cm−2) was determined by the ratio between leaf dry mass and leaf area at the end of the study period on 60 fully expanded leaves per provenance. Given the asymptotic form of H data, asymptotic non-linear models were used to describe H variations in function of time, following the methodology reported in Paine et al. (2012). In particular, the three-parameter logistic, the four-parameter logistic and the Gompertz functions were tested. The threeand four-parameter logistic models were implemented in R (R Development Core Team 2011) with the SSlogis and SSfpl functions, respectively (Pinheiro and Bates 2000). Gompertz models were implemented with the SSgompertz function. The fit of these growth functions allows estimation of: initial height (H0), growth rate of the function (r), higher asymptotic height (K) and lower asymptotic height (L). H data were logtransformed in order to reduce heteroscedasticity. The models were ranked by their value of Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The model with the lowest AIC value (i.e. ΔAIC = 0) was selected as the best model. Once the best model was selected, average predictions of H were generated following the procedure of Araújo et al. (2005). In particular, five random samples of the original H data, stratified per sampling day, were generated by using Statistica10 (Statsoft, USA). Five runs were made with the best model selected. In each run, the model was calibrated on the 70% random stratified sample of the original H data. The predictive accuracy of the model was evaluated on the remaining 30% of the H data by simple linear regression

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analysis (i.e. Predicted vs. Observed values). The procedure was repeated for each species and provenance. Models for each provenance were generated by the mean coefficient values (±SD). Averaging predictions is often preferred, since they give the lowest error (Ripley 1996). The obtained models (±SD) were then used to calculate RGR (cm·cm−1·day−1) as the derivative with respect to time of the functions used to predict height divided by current height, according to Paine et al. (2012).

Temperature dependency of RGRmax The relationship between RGR and mean daily air temperature (Tmean, °C) was evaluated through the Curve finder function of CurveExpert 1.4 (Hyams Development, TN, USA). This function employs a large number of regression models (both linear and non-linear) and each curve fit is ranked according to its standard error and correlation coefficient. Once the best model was selected, the degree of temperature dependency of the maximum RGR (RGRmax) per each provenance was evaluated through the relationship between RGRmax and the coefficients of the best regression model. Tmean data have been supplied from the Meteorological Station of Roma Macao (Ufficio Idrografico e Mareografico, Lazio Regional Agency) for the period May–August 2015. The meteorological station stands 0.84 km far from the experimental site.